{Current Affairs} Daily News Notes: 18th & 19th Dec, 2013

· The Bombay High Court has held that the remarriage of a widow would not deprive her from getting compensation for the accidental death of her first husband. Previously, the accidents tribunal had refused compensation to the wife on the ground that she had remarried, although it awarded the same to the victim's child. The Tribunal awarded his family a compensation of 30 lakh rupees. However, on an appeal, the high court increased this amount to 66.98 lakh rupees along with interest observing that calculations were not proper and there was a rise in income.
· Goa is celebrating its 52nd anniversary of liberation day from the Portuguese yoke today. Goa was liberated on nineteenth December 1961 from Portuguese occupation after a protracted and long freedom struggle and operation Vijay conducted by the Indian Army. The Chief Justice of the Mumbai High Court Justice Mohit S Shah laid the foundation stone of the proposed new building of the High Court of Bombay at Goa in a function coinciding with the liberation day celebrations.
· Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan, on Wednesday, said curbs on gold import would incentivise smuggling of the yellow metal [the 10% import duty on the yellow metal has led to a spike in gold smuggling]. Dr. Rajan said growth was below its potential even now. The effect of the negative output gap (this occurs when actual output is less than full capacity output) should be seen in the inflation numbers.
· The Department Related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice has differed with the opinion of the Attorney General G.E Vahanvati over the proposed amendment to The Right to Information Act to exclude political parties as ‘public authorities’ and has held that the government was right in mooting the amendment. The Right to Information (Amendment) Bill, 2013 seeks to amend the Right to Information Act, 2005 order to nullify the June order of the full Bench of Central Information Commission that brought six national parties under the act’s ambit. The Bill, introduced in the last session of Parliament, was referred to the committee for closer examination. The parliamentary committee maintained that the aspects of transparency in financial matters of political parties were fully covered under existing laws and mechanisms. These include direction from Election Commission to the parties asking them to submit their accounts within 90 days after general election, inspection of accounts of candidate of political party and obtaining the same from the EC on payment of nominal charges, and declaration of assets and liabilities to the Ethics Committee of House by MPs.
· The Lok Sabha on Wednesday passed the historic Lokpal and Lokayuktas Bill, 2013, paving the way for establishment of an ombudsman to fight corruption in public offices and ensure accountability on the part of public officials with some safeguards. The Lokpal and Lokayukta Bill, 2013 seeks to establish the institution of Lokpal at the Centre and Lokayukta at the level of States. The jurisdiction of the Lokpal will include the Prime Minister except on allegations of corruption relating to international relations, security, the public order, atomic energy and space and unless a Full Bench of the Lokpal and at least two-thirds of members approve an inquiry. It will be held in-camera and if the Lokpal so desires, the records of the inquiry will not be published or made available to anyone. The Lokpal will also have jurisdiction over Ministers and MPs but not in the matter of anything said in Parliament or a vote given there. Group A, B, C or D officers defined as such under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 will be covered under the Lokpal but any corruption complaint against Group A and B officers, after inquiry, will come to the Lokpal. However, in the case of Group C and D officers, the Chief Vigilance Commissioner will investigate and report to the Lokpal. Further, there will be a Directorate of Prosecution under the CBI headed by a Director. The CBI Director will be appointed by a collegium comprising the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and the Chief Justice of India. The Prosecution Director will be appointed on the recommendation of the Central Vigilance Commission for a two-year tenure. If the Lokpal decides to proceed on any complaint, it can order a preliminary inquiry against any public servant by its Inquiry Wing or any agency, including the CBI, to ascertain if there is a prima facie case, and the public servant will be given an opportunity of being heard. The Lokpal will have powers of superintendence over cases referred by it to the CBI. Any officer of the CBI investigating a case referred to it by the Lokpal will not be transferred without its approval. The Centre will fund the CBI investigations into the matters referred to it by the Lokpal. The Bill does not provide for protection to whistle-blowers, for which a separate law shall be enacted. There will be separate laws on a Citizens’ Charter and Judicial Accountability. Composition: The Bill provides for the Lokpal comprising a chairperson and a maximum of eight members, of whom 50 per cent will be judicial members and the rest from amongst the SC, the ST, the OBCs, minorities and women. Apart from the Inquiry Wing, there will be an independent Prosecution Wing of the Lokpal. The selection of the Lokpal will be done through a committee comprising the Prime Minister, the Speaker and the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, the Chief Justice of India or an apex court judge nominated by him and an eminent jurist as recommended by the chairperson and members to be nominated by the President. The term of the Lokpal will be five years or till the chairman and members turn 75. Religious bodies and trusts: The new bill includes societies and trusts that collect public money, receive funding from foreign sources, and have an income level above a certain threshold. Prosecution: Before taking a decision on filing a chargesheet in a case, the Lokpal may authorise its own prosecution wing or the concerned investigating agency to initiate prosecution in special courts. Hearing: The new bill says a government servant will get a hearing before a decision is taken by the Lokpal. Investigation: Inquiries have to be completed within 60 days and investigation within 6 months. Penalty: False and frivolous complaints will attract up to a year in jail and a fine of up to Rs 1 lakh. {INFOGRAPHIC}
· The Supreme Court has expressed concern over sexual exploitation of children and lack of preventive action by the States, and directed their Chief Secretaries to put an end to the menace. In January this year, the court directed all States and Union Territories to implement the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012, the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 and the Commission for Protection of Child Rights Act, 2005. SCI also finds that in State Commissions is only on paper, and in many States, the Chairman of the Commission has not been appointed and in some States even members have not been appointed.
· The Reserve Bank of India, on Tuesday, outlined a corrective action plan to minimise rising non-performing assets (NPAs). In a discussion paper on ‘Early recognition of financial distress, prompt steps for resolution and fair recovery for lenders: framework for revitalising distressed assets in the economy’, the RBI said it would set up a Central Repository of Information on Large Credits (CRILC) to collect, store, and disseminate credit data to lenders. All scheduled commercial banks will have to furnish credit information to CRILC on all their borrowers having aggregate fund-based and non-fund based exposure of Rs.5 crore and above, however, non-banking financial companies (NBFC-SI) would also be asked to furnish such information. In addition, banks would have to furnish details of all current accounts of their customers with outstanding balance (debit or credit) of Rs.1 crore and above. The RBI said that before a loan account turns into an NPA, banks should identify incipient stress in the account by creating a new sub-asset category, ‘Special Mention Accounts’ (SMA). Within the SMA category, there should be three sub-categories: SMA-NF non-financial (NF) signals of incipient stress; SMA-1 principal or interest payment overdue between 31-60 days; SMA-2 principal or interest payment overdue between 61-90 days. Banks will be required to report, among others, the SMA status of the borrower to the CRILC. Individual banks will have to closely monitor the accounts reported as SMA-1 or SMA-NF as these are the early warning signs of weaknesses in the account. The RBI also said that reporting of an account as SMA-2 by one or more lending banks/NBFC-SIs will trigger the mandatory formation of a joint lenders’ forum (JLF) and formulation of corrective action plan (CAP). Further, with a view to limiting the number of JLFs to be formed, it is proposed that JLF formation would be made mandatory for distressed corporate borrowers, engaged in any type of activity, with aggregate fund based and non-fund based exposure of Rs.100 crore and above. The RBI said that the lenders in the JLF would sign an inter creditor agreement (ICA) and also require the borrower to sign the debtor creditor agreement (DCA), which would provide the legal basis for any restructuring process. The RBI further said that “wilful defaulters will normally not be eligible for restructuring.”
· The Indian Institute of Mass Communication in New Delhi has commenced a five month Diploma Course in Urdu Journalism. The course intends to promote the proficiency of working journalists in Urdu newspapers and the capabilities of media professionals in Urdu. The course is expected to be completed by April 2014.
· Surprising the markets, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), on Wednesday, kept the monetary policy rates unchanged. The RBI kept the repo rate (short term rate at which banks borrow funds from the central bank) at 7.75 per cent, and kept the cash reserve ratio (portion of the total deposits the banks have to keep with the central bank as a reserve) at the current level of 4 per cent.
· The Standing Committee on Petroleum and Natural Gas has sought a review of the Rangarajan formula for gas pricing, saying that the price should be fixed after factoring in the domestic cost of production. Factoring is a financial transaction whereby a business sells its accounts receivable to a third party (called a factor) at a discount. The committee, in a report tabled in Parliament, said the proposed formula is a simple average of two methodologies— price of imports of LNG into India by different suppliers and weighted average of prices of natural gas prevailing at Henry Hub in USA, National Balancing Point (NBP) in London and netback import price at the well head of suppliers into Japan. The panel, headed by Andhra Pradesh MP Aruna Kumar Vundavalli, was of the view that Russia, which exports 40 to 50 per cent of its gas to Europe at a price of about $8.77 per mBtu, could be a better indicator of gas price. Russia is the world's second largest gas producer and consuming country in the world and its prices could be incorporated as one of the reference price in the pricing formula, it said. According to the Rangarjan pricing formula, the price will be revised quarterly. Prices for each quarter will be calculated based on the 12-month trailing average price with a lag of one quarter (i.e. price for April to June 2014 will be calculated based on the average for 12 months ended December 31, 2013). Using the approved formula, gas price in April-June is estimated at $8.2-8.4, nearly double the current selling price of $4.20 .
· Over half of India’s working population in 2011-12 was under the $2-per-day poverty line, new research has found, raising serious questions over the quality of work most Indians find. In fact, the incidence of poverty is higher among the employed than the unemployed. The report analyses (released by the Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh) decades of data up to the 2011-12 round of the National Sample Survey and presents original research. Data from the report suggests that the unemployed in India might primarily be those who haven’t found the right job and are able to hold off for the right offer. Unemployment rates, which range between two and four per cent for the general population, rise steadily with the level of education and are higher still among women who are educated. In 2011-12, a third of the total unemployed were graduates or post-graduates. Unemployment is highest in the 15-25 age group, meaning new entrants to the job market — the cohort that is poised to see big growth in the coming years. This raises the worrying sceptre that India’s much-heralded demographic dividend is already slipping away. For the report, researchers created a new Employment Situation Index (ESI) to compare the numbers across the States. The composite index is composed of seven indicators that measure the extent of formal and casual employment, work participation rate, unemployment, wages, unionisation and the incidence of poverty among the self-employed. Using the index, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana, Karnataka and Punjab are in the top five and Bihar, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh in the bottom five. Himachal Pradesh and Kerala are the top-ranking States in female employment. There is also a strong social dimension to employment, the researchers found. The Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes and large sections of the Other Backward Classes have lower educational attainments and are concentrated in low productivity sectors, while Muslims are concentrated in low-paying petty self-employment. ‘Upper’ caste Hindus, Jains, Sikhs and Christians have a disproportionate share of good jobs, the report says.
· The Cabinet Committee on Skill Development today approved the National Skills Qualifications Framework (NSQF), a quality assurance framework which organizes qualifications according to a series of levels of knowledge, skills and aptitude. These levels are defined in terms of learning outcomes which the learner must possess regardless of whether they were acquired through formal, non-formal or informal learning. NSQF will also facilitate Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL). Additionally, it would help alignment of Indian qualifications to international qualifications. The NSQF is a nationally integrated education and competency based skill framework that will provide for multiple pathways, horizontal as well as vertical, both within vocational education and vocational training and among vocational education, vocational training, general education and technical education, thus linking one level of learning to another higher level. There are 10 levels in the framework, with the entry level being 1, and the highest level being 10. This will enable a person to acquire desired competency levels, transit to the job market and, at an opportune time, return for acquiring additional skills to further upgrade competencies.
· The stage is set for filing of a review petition against the Supreme Court order recriminalizing gay sex between adults (Sec. 377) with the law ministry receiving attorney general G E Vahanvati’s opinion. The apex court had on December 11 set aside a 2009 Delhi high court order which had decriminalized same-sex relationships. The SC had upheld the legality of Section 377 of the IPC which provides for imprisonment up to life term.
The case was first filed in 2001 by an NGO Naz Foundation in the Delhi HC seeking decriminalizing gay sex among consenting adults. The HC had first dismissed the petition in 2004 but after the petitioner approached the apex court and the SC directed the HC to reconsider the matter on merit in 2009, it decriminalized gay sex, partly striking down Section 377.
· Harsh Kumar Bhanwala has been appointed as Chairman of the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) by the Centre. Bhanwala, succeeds Prakash Bakshi, who retired as NABARD Chairman. Previously, Bhanwala was an Executive Director at India Infrastructure Finance Company Ltd (IIFCL), a state-owned infrastructure lender.
· Five Institutes of Technology (IITs) feature in the top 20 in the world’s first dedicated ranking of universities among the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). China’s universities dominated the table with 40 of them featuring in the top 100, 22 in the top 50 and 4 in the top 5 with Tsinghua University being ranked the best. Russia has 19 of its universities in the top 100, Brazil 17, India 16 and South Africa 8 in the list. IIT-Delhi takes the top ranking (13) among Indian universities followed by IIT-Mumbai (15), IIT-Madras (16), IITKanpur (17) and IIT-Kharagpur (18). There is then a huge gap on that merit list when it comes to Indian entries. The next Indian universities on the list are IIT-Rourkee (34) and IIT-Guwahati (51). University of Calcutta is ranked 52nd,followed by University of Delhi at 53. University of Mumbai is ranked 62nd.
· Singapore said it will deport 52 Indians and pursue criminal charges against 28 alleged rioters who actively participated in the country’s worst outbreak of violence in over 40 years, sending a tough message to trouble-makers. The police said it had completed investigations into the riot on December 8 in Little India where South Asian workers take their Sunday break.
· Seeking to improve bilateral cooperation, India and Japan on Wednesday tripled the limit for the currency swap arrangement to $50 billion. In December 2012, the two countries had entered into a bilateral currency swap arrangement for $15 billion. This arrangement would help addressing possible short-term liquidity mismatches and supplement existing international financial arrangements. The two countries had a similar arrangement for $3 billion for three years from June 2008.
· The Director-General Military Operations (DGMO) of Pakistan has invited (on December 24) his Indian counterpart for a meeting to strengthen the mechanism to ensure ceasefire on the Line of Control. The meeting between the DGMOs was agreed to when the Prime Ministers of both countries met in New York in September on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. Earlier, the U.S. had asked India to accept Pakistan’s suggestion for including Indian civilian diplomats in the proposed DGMOs meeting. However, India had not accepted this suggestion. Reports also quoted India’s Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh, who went to Washington, as saying the LoC was a military issue and New Delhi did not see a diplomatic role in what was essentially a military issue.
· The government is reworking the system of sending domestic helps abroad to work with diplomats (Devyani Khobragade). Taking its cue from this case, the government is now accelerating a proposal, pending with the Finance Ministry, to designate Indian domestic help working abroad as government servants on contract in order not to fall foul of minimum wages laws in developed countries. The Ministry of External Affairs moved the proposal after the case of another Indian diplomat hit the headlines in 2011. If this is coupled with short-term government contacts, most of the issues bedevilling Indian diplomats will be sorted out — they will not be held personally culpable in case of a contractual dispute and the contract system will take care of the minimum wages issue. Also, the New Delhi also sought to shift Ms. Khobragade to India’s Permanent Mission in U.N. where she will get full diplomatic immunity. The attempt comes against the backdrop of the U.S. claiming that officials working in consulates get immunity only for acts done in their line of work and thus raising fear of the possibility of the diplomat being harassed again. {INFOGRAPHIC}
· The External Affairs Ministry has said that the Indian sailors Sunil James and Vijayan are expected to reach India by tomorrow. The sailor's release is the result of the diplomatic relationship between India and Togo. The sailor was under arrest in the west African country since July on the charge of aiding pirates who had attacked and looted his Marshall Islands-flagged MT Ocean Centurion on July 16. India was in touch with Togo authorities to secure the release of James on compassionate ground. His family wanted him to conduct the last rites of his 11-month-old son.
· Finance Minister P Chidambaram today said India is better prepared to deal with the changes in the US Federal Reserve bond purchase. He announced that the government has taken note of the Federal Reserve announcing that it will continue to purchase securities at 75 billion dollar per month as against the earlier 85 billion dollar. The announcement said that it was only a mild reduction and not sequential. The US Federal Reserve said that it will continue its purchases of Treasury and agency mortgage-backed securities and employ its other policy tools as appropriate, until the outlook for the labour market has improved substantially in the context of price stability. The Finance Minister said the government is of the view that the Indian markets, which had already factored in the US Federal Reserve's decisions, are not likely to be surprised by these moderate changes.
· The UN General Assembly has unanimously adopted a resolution aimed at protecting the right to privacy against unlawful surveillance in the digital age. Germany and Brazil introduced the resolution following a series of reports of US surveillance, interception, and data collection abroad including on Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff and German Chancellor Angela Merkel that surprised and angered friends and allies. The resolution affirms that the same rights that people have offline must also be protected online, including the right to privacy.
· Iran will resume technical talks related to its nuclear program with the experts from the six world powers- US, UK, France, Russia, China plus Germany in Geneva over the next two days. The talks are aimed at reaching out to a comprehensive deal over the next six months as envisaged under the interim nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1 group of nations in Geneva last month. Under the deal Iran agreed to scale down its nuclear program in exchange for a limited easing of sanctions. Iranian negotiators halted the technical talks in Vienna last week after the US blacklisted 19 Iranian companies and individuals, saying the move was against the spirit of the nuclear deal. The US however said it was a part of the existing sanctions and had nothing to do with the ongoing nuclear talks. The six world powers are seeking to curb Iran's atomic program to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons.
· A draft bill to address the issue of modern slavery in Britain was presented to the U.K. Parliament for its consideration. Based upon the recommendations of a white paper prepared by the a three-member Modern Slavery Bill Evidence Review panel, the bill comes soon after the emergence of a shocking case of human bondage in London, the details of which are still getting unravelled and being understood. The draft bill, which the government claims is the first of its kind in Europe, seeks to amalgamate existing laws prohibiting human trafficking and slavery offences to make prosecution easier. It will increase the maximum sentence for trafficking to life imprisonment; create the post of an Anti-Slavery Commissioner who will “galvanise law enforcement’s efforts to tackle modern slavery”; and make it mandatory for businesses to ensure that their supply chains do not employ illegal labour practices. The Review Panel, in its comprehensive evidence-based report, said that the trafficking trade is “worth a minimum of $32 billion a year and is either the second or third (depending on the method of calculation) most profitable of all illicit trades, behind only the illegal drugs trade, and, by some measures, the arms trade.” Further, according to the government, in the U.K., individuals from over 95 countries have been referred to the National Referral Mechanism (NRM). The top ten source countries accounted for 68 per cent of all NRM referrals in 2012. The highest were from Nigeria with 205 referrals, Vietnam (135), Albania (128), Romania (74) and China (55). India falls in the top 20.
· Faced with a January 1, 2014 deadline imposed by the European Union to allow immigrants from Romania and Bulgaria to enjoy the same rights as British workers, the David Cameron government has announced new measures (Immigration Bill) that it hopes will deter job-seekers from these countries into the UK. EU citizens who enter the UK for work will be able to access welfare and out-of-work benefits only from three months after their arrival, instead of three weeks as was hitherto the case. Other measures announced include cutting off benefits after six months for EU job seekers; stopping their housing benefit claims; setting a minimum earnings threshold; imposing a re-entry ban on those who have not been working; and increasing to £ 20,000 per employee the fine on an employer who is found not paying the minimum wage.
· Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday announced a plan to buy $15 billion of Ukrainian bonds and slash Kiev's bill for Russian gas imports, in a boost for embattled Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych as he faces monster protests over a rejected EU pact. Russia also agreed to remove trade barriers it put up at the start of the year when it seemed that Kiev (Capital and largest city of the Ukraine) was on the verge of signing a historic trade and political association agreement with Brussels that would have pulled it out of Moscow's orbit for the first time. The help from Russia may allow Kiev to stave off the threat of an imminent balance of payments crisis and possible default amid a recession that has seen the economy shrink since the first half of last year.
· Russian Foreign Minister announced in Brussels (capital of Belgium; seat of the NATO) after meeting his European Union (EU) counterparts that Moscow will provide naval escorts to ships ferrying tonnes of material as part of a multinational exercise, involving the United States and its European allies as partners, to destroy Syria’s stockpile of chemical weapons. Russia had persuaded Syria to destroy its chemical weapons after it was accused in August by Washington and its allies of using Sarin gas against civilians on the outskirts of Damascus. However, accusing Syria of being a persistent human rights violator, the U.S. representative Samantha Power told the Security Council that the “Russian regime has a remarkable trust in a government that sends rockets at and bombs its own population”.
· Virtual currency Bitcoin, on Wednesday, crashed in China, falling almost 50 per cent after the country's biggest trading platform BTC China banned deposits in yuan, following new restrictions imposed by the People’s Bank of China. Two weeks ago the People’s Bank of China, the central bank, ordered financial institutions not to provide Bitcoin-related services and products and cautioned against its potential use in money-laundering. Bitcoin, invented in the wake of the global financial crisis by a mysterious computer guru using the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, is a form of cryptography-based e-money. It can be stored either virtually or on a user’s hard drive, and offers a largely anonymous payment system.
· Camels are catching a virus that has been sickening people in the Middle East, according to research just published. The Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) was first reported just over a year back. Since then, the World Health Organisation has been informed about 165 laboratory-confirmed cases of people infected by the virus, over 40 per cent of whom died.
· Anita Devi refused to be cowed down by big names and clinched the women’s sports pistol gold in the 57th National shooting championship at Tughlakabad, on Tuesday. Anita had matched Commonwealth Games gold medallist Anisa in the semifinals earlier, by topping the elite eight with 17 points.
· Former India captain Kapil Dev will be the recipient of the Col. C.K. Nayudu Lifetime Achievement Award for 2013. Kapil, who led India to its first World Cup victory in 1983, is one of the greatest cricketers of all time. Along with Ian Botham, Imran Khan, and Richard Hadlee, Kapil formed a formidable ensemble of all-rounders in the 1980s. He was the first player to complete the ‘double’ of 5,000 runs and 400 wickets in Tests.
· India clinched men’s Kabaddi World Cup for the fourth time in row, defeating its arch rival Pakistan in the neck and neck final clash played at Guru Nanak Dev Stadium in Ludhiana, Punjab.